Don't Ever Touch My Balls Without AskingBOOYY!
by TacsGurlJess
Summary: It's happened...the story of "Phantasm" has come to life. Now, it's all up to those crazy coppers from "Police Academy" to get on the case. Please R&R! It's not what the title says, trust me.
1. Default Chapter

Crossover: "Phantasm" Meets "Police Academy" a.k.a. Don't Ever Touch My Balls Without Asking.BOOYY!  
  
Note: As always, I don't own the "Police Academy" characters. I don't own the "Phantasm" characters, either; their rightful owner is Don Coscarelli. So don't get me in trouble for doing this, or else I'll sic Sergeant Tackleberry on you! This is my first try at a movie crossover, so I may be a little shaky with this story. I got my inspiration for this fic from listening to the theme from "Phantasm". I'd seen some of the original movie a while back and found it to be a great horror flick.  
  
It had returned. The Morningside Mortuary was back, standing where it had always been. And that meant only one thing.he was back as well, continuing his reign of death. There was no way to kill him. No way to stop his rule of terror. No way to keep him from perpetuating his grisly work. Morningside's angel of death had returned.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jessica Tackleberry sat at the desk in her office of the Metropolitan Police Precinct and stretched.  
  
"God, I hate Mondays," she muttered, then yawned sleepily as she looked down at the desk, littered with paperwork. Mondays were not her favorite. "I despise them with a passion." Just then, Eugene, her husband of almost a year, stuck his head inside.  
  
"Jessica? Can you come here for a second?" He waved her over to where he was standing at the door.  
  
"Sure," Jess replied. She stood and went over to see what was up. "What've you got for me?"  
  
"I got a report today that I found to be very odd," the taller Tackleberry said as he opened up the file with the case record in it.  
  
"Well, what could it be?" asked the shorter of the two.  
  
"It appears that someone is being stalked by this old man," Eugene continued as he handed Jessica the report. "I don't have a name of whoever this person is. The boy only told me he goes by the name of-" Jessica cut him off as she found what he was talking about.  
  
"-The Tall Man," she finished for him. She looked away for a moment, thinking about whether the name rang a bell. After a minute or so, she had made a connection. "Eugene, I think I know who you're talking about."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Ever see the 'Phantasm' movies?"  
  
"No, I can't say I have," Eugene said, a little bewildered. "Why?"  
  
"It began in the movies, and now it appears the story has come to life. This 'Tall Man' has allegedly murdered people in Morningside for some time," Jessica continued. "He uses these strange spheres with extendable twin blades that lock to a person's forehead, then the drill on board goes through the skull and sends their blood spurting out the other end of the sphere. As a result, the victim is drained of their vital fluids and they die."  
  
Eugene cringed. "That's a violent way to go."  
  
"Yeah," said Jessica. "But this young man who's being stalked apparently needs our help. We'll go see my father about assigning us to the project." Together she and her husband walked down the hall together to Captain Peter Lassard's office.  
  
"Captain Lassard, sir," Jessica said as she and Eugene stepped inside. "We need you to assign us to the Morningside case. Sergeant Tackleberry and I may be the only hope for a boy named Mike who's being stalked by this 'Tall Man'. I respectfully ask you consider my request and assign us to the case."  
  
"Jessica, it's not often that I turn down a request from you," Captain Lassard said. "But I can't have you go on such a dangerous mission." Captain Harris, who was standing behind her listening in on them, decided to make his presence known. Jessica and Eugene glared at him and rolled their eyes behind his back as he strolled in past them.  
  
"The reason why Captain Lassard doesn't want you to go," he said, his voice dripping with sweet smugness, "is because he can't bear to see his daughter become a victim of some psychotic tall man who kills anyone and everyone, especially vulnerable young ladies." He turned on his heel to face her, standing in front of Captain Lassard's desk. Captain Harris's face was plastered with a smirk so cruel and self-satisfying Jessica had to restrain herself from lashing out at him in anger.  
  
"I'm afraid.Captain Harris is right," Jessica's father said. "It's too risky for you to take on this 'Tall Man'. This is one time when I feel I have to refuse your request."  
  
"Sir, I would go with Jessica," Tackleberry protested as he stepped forward. "I'd be there to keep her safe. She wouldn't be alone on the case."  
  
"Eugene, I'm still not sure I should let you two go by yourselves," Captain Lassard said. "Perhaps I should send some other officers instead." The motorcycle officer facing Peter pulled out his silver handgun-the one with the long barrel-in a flash.  
  
"Sir, I demand that you give us the case!" he barked. "If you refuse Jessica's request, I'll be forced to do some heavy damage to this office in retaliation!" Both Peter Lassard and Thaddeus Harris backed away, hands in the air. Eugene's wife intervened, stepping forward and calmly pushing the revolver down so it pointed to the floor.  
  
"Eugene and myself will take it on, whether you send other officers or not," Jessica replied firmly, holding her ground. "This boy needs our help. If we don't offer assistance, who will?" Her gaze never wavered, eyes locked with her father's. Eventually, Peter sighed in resignation; he knew his daughter all too well and understood that she would not give up easily if she wanted something. She would fight in whatever way possible until she got what she was after.  
  
"Alright, Jessica," he said in defeat. "You win. You and Sergeant Tackleberry are assigned to the case, but I'm still standing by my order that other officers will go with you."  
  
"Good enough," Jessica said with a nod, then, shooting a cold glance at Harris, "I'll start reading up on the situation immediately." With that, she sharply about-faced and strode out, Eugene following behind. As they made their way down the hall back to Jessica's office, the two began to discuss the case at hand.  
  
"What I can't understand is why would the Tall Man go about killing all these innocent people?" Eugene asked.  
  
"It's simple," his wife replied. "Essentially, death is his trade. The longer he continues taking the ones Mike loves, the longer he'll exist and carry on his work. This boy created him from nightmares after his brother, Jody, died, and now his illusion has taken on reality."  
  
"How will we know what he looks like?" the taller officer asked as they stepped inside the office where Jess worked. Jessica sat down at her desk and opened up her laptop.  
  
"I'm doing a background check now on the Tall Man," she replied. After some typing and clicking, she came up with just what she needed. "Bingo."  
  
"You found it?"  
  
"Come here." Jessica waved Eugene to the other side of the desk. He hurried around and leaned down next to her to check the information on the screen. "We have a match. Let me write down some distinguishing features about him, just so we can remember." She grabbed a pen and a notebook and began to scribble frantically.  
  
"Very tall, about six foot six.receding hairline with longish gray hair.tends to squint one eye in a sinister manner.dark suit.wrinkles in face." Her husband watched intently with a wide-eyed expression like a child, so curious was he to find out more on the Tall Man. Once she finished writing notes to describe their suspect physically, she went on to location cues that would help them find him. "Located in Morningside, outside of Los Angeles.place of work, Morningside Mortuary." Finally, she moved on to the last item about the Tall Man: his instruments of death.  
  
"According to this profile of our guy, and from what I told you earlier, it seems I was correct," Jessica said. She clicked on a picture and blew it up so it appeared larger; it was a photo of one of the balls that she had described earlier.  
  
"So that's it. That's what one of the spheres with the killer drill looks like," Eugene breathed, muted shock on his face. "Those things are deadly."  
  
"Yeah," Jessica replied. She had to suppress a shudder, because looking at the blades and drill extended from the silver chrome floating sphere made her think that this could be one of the most horrifying (and disgusting) ways to die. Screaming in agony with one's blood streaming out of their forehead, and-  
  
"Jess? You okay?" The voice of her husband interrupted Lieutenant Tackleberry's thoughts. She shook her head quickly to clear her mental fog.  
  
"Oh! Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "It just makes my stomach turn somewhat to think about.that." Jessica pointed to the photo of the softball-sized metallic ball.  
  
"The key to slowing to a crawl the rate of deaths by these spheres," she continued, "is figuring out a way to disable them." At this, Eugene pulled out his handgun.  
  
"I'm sure striking it in the right spot with a bullet will knock them out," he said confidently as he loaded new bullets into the weapon. Jessica shook her head.  
  
"Hate to burst your bubble, dear. These are small but efficient killing machines," she answered flatly. "They're very technologically advanced. Their on-board electronic circuitry is highly intricate; the body's made of chromium steel-which is ultra-strong-so bullets'll only bounce right off them; and disarming them is next to impossible. It's mainly because of their metal exterior that getting to either the wiring or the weapons, or both, is extremely difficult. That's why these spheres are virtually unstoppable." When she finished, Jessica turned to face her husband, face grim.  
  
"We've definitely got our work cut out for us, then," the slightly older Tackleberry said, taking a deep breath and releasing it, trying to keep his normally-strong stomach from reeling. Both gathered up the paperwork for the case, and Jessica put it back in the file folder. She returned the folder to the file cabinet and began to pick up her gear. When she finished, Tackleberry's spouse walked out of her office.  
  
"Hey, Jess! Where do you think you're going?" asked Eugene. She stopped and turned around.  
  
"I'm getting ready to head to Morningside as soon as possible," she called back. "You should get your things, too. Now come on, we have to round up the rest of the crew!" With a laugh, she made her way to the door and outside, her husband jogging to catch up. 


	2. Don't Ever Touch My Balls Without Asking...

Crossover: "Phantasm" Meets "Police Academy" Chapter 2 a.k.a. Don't Ever Touch My Balls Without Asking.BOOYY!  
  
That night, all the officers who were assigned to the Morningside murders investigation gathered at the precinct, where Jessica worked part- time outside of the police station she was regularly assigned to. The group had gathered inside of her office.  
  
"I don't see what the big deal is," Sergeant Douglas Fackler said before the officers were briefed on the situation. "I mean, shouldn't we allow the Morningside police department to handle this? The town's out of our jurisdiction."  
  
"The Morningside police were never informed of the incidents," Captain Deborah Callahan answered coolly. "No proof was ever found to even suspect the Tall Man character. To everyone in that town, he's just the guy who runs the local funeral home." She removed her sunglasses and looked at Fackler, annoyed.  
  
"Sergeant Fackler, tell me, does your intelligence quotient drop only when you're on a case, or are you always like this?" He simply put up his hands defensively and turned away from Callahan without a word.  
  
"Oh, and see to it that you're careful tonight," Jessica said, pointing at the usually clumsy sergeant. "We don't need any slip-ups from you, especially. It's crucial that we get the job done and close the case." Fackler nodded, sighing inwardly.  
  
"Oh, my gosh! I just hope that none of us gets hurt," Sergeant Laverne Hooks frantically murmured in her barely-audible voice.  
  
"You'll be staying behind to help Mike and Reggie with whatever they need," Eugene replied. "Jessica and I'll be taking on this 'Tall Man'. We will, however, call you in for backup, if necessary."  
  
"Aw, no fair!" whined Fackler. "You mean we don't get in on this?" The two officers sighed, knowing there was no way they could win this battle, especially if their colleagues wanted a piece of the action.  
  
"Alright, fine. You guys can help us out, too, but don't do anything that could get yourselves, or us, killed," warned Jessica. "The Tall Man is extremely dangerous and could go after any one of us." Sergeant Moses Hightower, normally quiet and reserved, stepped forward and pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand.  
  
"Bring on this 'Tall Man'," he growled. "We'll just see who's more dangerous." Eugene and Jessica looked at each other.  
  
"Well, at least we have someone on our side who can match up to the guy in terms of height and physical build," Sergeant Tackleberry said, trying to make the situation a little more optimistic. His wife nodded, then they turned to face the others. "Okay, roll call! Listen up!" Eugene began to read off names of the officers assigned to the case with him and Jess.  
  
"Callahan!" "Here!"  
  
"Fackler!" "Present!"  
  
"Hightower!" "Yo!" Eugene Tackleberry looked up from the list and raised an eyebrow at his gigantic fellow officer, then cleared his throat and continued on.  
  
"Hooks!" "Here." Hooks' light, whispery voice was barely audible. Eugene called her name again.  
  
"Hooks! Are you here?" "I said I'm here." She was only slightly louder this time. Tackleberry tried one more time, and Hooks was getting more annoyed with herself that she could not be heard.  
  
"Last call, Hooks!" "I'M HERE, BOY!!" the diminutive black female shrieked, the loudness of her voice reaching almost an ear-splitting level. All the other officers present winced.  
  
"Uh, thank you, Hooks," Eugene said, holding his ear. "Now, where was I.oh, yeah. Jones!" There came an eerie sound from somewhere in the back, and Sergeant Larvell Jones slowly rose up, standing on a chair to make himself appear taller. His face was contorted into a sinister scowl. Suddenly, everyone froze, waiting for him to say something, though fearful of what might come out of his mouth. Jones turned to scowl down at Eugene.  
  
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!" Jessica's eyes grew wide, and as the shorter black male officer-who had the ability to imitate sound effects with his mouth-threw himself down on Sergeant Tackleberry, the lieutenant tackled him out of the way so that Jones nearly landed on her. He got to his feet, cracking up hysterically. Jessica and Eugene managed to roll over onto their sides to glare up at him.  
  
"Nice one, Jones," Lieutenant Tackleberry spat sarcastically. "Remind me to have you try the Tall Man act on that kid Mike when we get to Morningside!" Her voice jumped up several notches in volume on the last few words.  
  
"Well, at least we know you're present and accounted for," Eugene groused as he slowly stood up, checking under his nose every few seconds for any blood that may have begun trickling out when Jess sacked him to the floor. He helped her get back up and both straightened themselves out. "Now sit down until I finish here." Jones obediently backed up and planted himself in a chair.  
  
"Okay, okay! I'm sorry. I was just trying to make light of the circumstances we're facing," he protested.  
  
"Save the horseplay for later," the tall motorcycle officer said. "Right now, we've got to keep clear heads and think positive but realistic." He picked up the clipboard again.  
  
"Mahoney!" No response. Eugene craned his neck to see if his smart- alecky friend was around at all. "Mahoney, if you're here, give an affirmative!" As if on cue, the office door burst open and a dark-haired man, about five foot six, stumbled inside.  
  
"Does Mahoney running in late count?" Jessica quipped.  
  
"Care to give an explanation as to why you're not here on time, mister?" Eugene demanded.  
  
"Sorry for the tardiness," Sergeant Carey Mahoney answered. "There was a huge 20-car-pileup and some llamas escaped from a circus. It was a disaster area. Took me about an hour using the back roads." Both Tackleberries lifted an eyebrow skeptically.  
  
"Aw, come on, guys! Lighten up a little, huh?" protested Mahoney. Everyone there knew him all too well; he was one to make up stories, being the wise-ass of the crew.  
  
"Well.we'll forgive you anyway. I mean, you're our friend. Besides, it's hard to stay mad at you," Jessica finally said, a half-smile managing to sneak onto her face. "Now find a seat. We're finishing roll call, then briefing all of you on the case at hand." Carey found a chair and sat himself down.  
  
"Sweetchuck!" "Here!" The timid man with the thick-rimmed spectacles tried to make himself sound as loud as possible.  
  
"Zed!" "Ehhhhhheer!" The "wild man" of the group jumped up and waved his arms, hoping he would be noticed.  
  
"You can put your arms down, Zed," said Jessica. "We know you're here."  
  
"And both Tackleberries are here," Eugene concluded. "Jessica, will you do the honors?"  
  
"Okay, everyone. Here's how it's going down," Jessica began in an authoritative voice. "We've been assigned to a small town, located up north of here in Oregon, called Morningside. There's a young teenage boy named Mike Pearson who needs our help, desperately. Apparently, he's being pursued by a character who goes by the title of the 'Tall Man'. Now, this guy, according to the story we've received, originated from Mike's nightmares, in a place called the Red Planet, but now he's taken on reality here on Earth. Over six feet in height, almost spidery, and very sinister- looking, the Tall Man is in the business of death. He runs the mortuary and mausoleum in the town, but there is a secret behind his trade.  
  
"The departed persons he embalms for burial are taken back, crushed to about three feet in height, and filled with this unusual yellow liquid for blood. Be extremely cautious, you don't want to meet one of them any more than the Tall Man himself. They're his minions, the ones who do the dirty work on his home planet." Here she paused for a moment, thinking of what she had to inform them about next, and mentally steadied herself. "Another thing you should know: this 'Lord of the Dead' uses these small, chrome metal spheres in order to have more dead victims on hand to be transformed into the hideous dwarf creatures. One is called a drone sphere; silver chrome, dual cranial impact blades, and a cranial drill that goes into the forehead and drains the blood. The other is a battle sphere; gold chrome, slightly larger in diameter than a drone, with tri-cranial impact blades and two spinning member saws that can cut off appendages. Their wiring systems are very complex, and their exterior body material is super-strong, so there's no way that bullets can destroy them. We need to find something else that can disable or break the spheres completely." The lieutenant began to pale a little, so Hightower rushed over and put an arm around her lest she collapse, then helped her to an empty chair. While he instructed Jessica to bend over and bring her face to her knees in order to settle her roiling stomach, Eugene carried on in her place.  
  
"Take care while we're in Morningside, especially in the funeral home and the mausoleum, although the Tall Man may send out his deadly metallic orbs almost anywhere. We found out from Mike that, should you hear the quiet hum of an approaching sphere, immediately find a hiding place, preferably one where it can't reach you. Last, but certainly not least, never.ever.EVER go anywhere without at least one other officer. If you're alone, you put yourself at greater risk of being picked off." He let everyone know he was finished by clapping his hands together once. "Okay, everyone. End of meeting, grab your gear and go. Let's move!" As the other officers hefted their Metropolitan Police Department duffel bags and backpacks and headed out of the office, the sergeant went over to check on his spouse.  
  
"You feeling better now, Jess?" he asked, squatting down and putting a hand on her shoulder. Her face still buried in her knees, Jessica nodded, then lifted her head and sucked in a deep breath to finally calm herself. Eugene squeezed her shoulder as she stood up from her seat, picked her helmet up off the desk, and together they both walked into the hallway. After locking her office once everyone had gone, she and her husband made their way to the door, but before they could open it, a familiar weasel slithered in and blocked their way.  
  
"Now what do you want?" huffed Jessica, annoyed by Captain Harris' mere presence.  
  
"Why, didn't you hear? I've been put on this special assignment as well," Harris told her in his most sickeningly innocent voice. "Except I will be in charge of this operation, so you'd best do what I say."  
  
"Or what?" Eugene cut in. Thaddeus kept his composure, even though he had a taller, stronger officer staring him down.  
  
"Or else there'll be hell to pay," he said in his most evil voice. "I could have your badges all taken away for disobeying my orders." Harris whipped his baton in Jessica's direction, but instead of meeting her shoulder, she reached around with her other hand and caught it in her gloved grip.  
  
"Especially YOU, missy. When I have you tossed out of the United States Mounted Police Corps, I won't have to tolerate your high-and-mighty attitude any longer." At this, Jessica's expression hardened.  
  
"MY high-and-mighty attitude?!" she growled, flinging the baton out of her hand. She was about to go for the captain's throat, but Eugene stepped in between the two.  
  
"Okay, time to get moving," he said, pushing Jessica out the door, then both mounted their bikes, put their helmets on, and started up their engines. After the two had left on their motorcycles, Harris went out to his car, but found he couldn't start it.  
  
"Where did I put the keys?" he wondered, digging around for the car keys. "Wait.I believe.I gave them to." Suddenly, it all came rushing back to him.  
  
"PROCTOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 


	3. Don't Ever Touch My Balls Without Asking...

Crossover: "Phantasm" Meets "Police Academy" Chapter 3 a.k.a. Don't Ever Touch My Balls Without Asking.BOOYY!  
  
The crew on the mission to stop the murders in Morningside traveled along in a tight mini-convoy consisting of three patrol cars and two motorcycles side-by-side, one a Harley, the other a Suzuki sport cycle. They were careful to stay close together in a single file line, and the driver of the lead car made sure that the motorcycle officers were kept in sight. Since it was about a six-hour drive to the small town outside the lights of Los Angeles, the tiny fleet of vehicles did pull off the highway onto a service ramp at one point to make a pit stop and keep their energy level up with some fast food. The officers ate hastily, not wanting to lose too much time; while the others wolfed down their food in the parking lot, Jessica and Eugene had parked their cycles up on a ledge, near the crash barrier separating the service area from the main road. As they munched on cheeseburgers and fries, they maintained a close watch on the highway, looking for any suspicious vehicles.  
  
"Wow. It's beautiful tonight," mused Jessica, focusing her eyes away from the road for a moment and looking up at the clear night sky. "Don't you think so, darling? I mean, look at all those stars."  
  
"Yeah. It's the night of a new moon, though," Eugene said. "Meaning, there's total darkness, and that's the perfect setting for another death to occur."  
  
"Well, we're right here near the crash barrier, so we'll be the first ones to catch anything unusual," his wife reassured him. At that very second, a distant roar was heard, and shortly a black car came screaming past. As it zoomed by, it actually created quite a strong breeze. "Whoa! What in God's name was that?"  
  
"A muscle car, I'd say, judging from the power in that engine," Sergeant Tackleberry said. He and Jessica saw it make a sharp U-turn, then speed back towards the service ramp and pulled down into the parking lot. The two motorcycle officers quickly abandoned their bikes-and their food-to see who had come in like a bat out of hell. "Hey! Hey! What was that about?! You realize you were doing 85 in a 55 mile-per-hour speed limit zone, don't you?!" Eugene and Jessica ran down to the parking lot as fast as they could, pulling their handguns out of the holsters at their hips. Just as they reached the black car, out stepped the two people the group was heading to Morningside to give aid to: Mike, the one who had called them here, and his friend, a former ice cream vendor named Reggie. The teenage boy put his hands in the air at seeing the two officers in leather jackets with their guns trained on him and his partner, but Reggie whipped out his quad-barreled rifle.  
  
"Okay, I'm warning you now. You shoot Mike and I'll blast your Goddamn heads off!" Reggie said, propping it up on the roof of the car. This time, it was the motorcycle cops' turn to "put 'em up", their handguns dangling from their gloved forefingers.  
  
"Easy there, chill! We're here to help," Jessica tried to explain. "We've come from the Metropolitan Police Department in L.A." She looks at Mike, who has now dropped his arms.  
  
"He was the one who sent for us."  
  
"And how do I know you're telling the truth?" Reggie asked, still uncertain, keeping his rifle pointed at her and Eugene.  
  
"Look, we'll show you our I.D.'s. Will you believe us if we do that for you?" offered Jessica's husband. To prove his point, the two of them pulled out their police identification cards and badges and flipped them open. "I'm Sergeant Eugene Tackleberry, Metropolitan Police Department. I was the one who took the call from this young man here." He indicated Mike, then after a long, hard look at Eugene and Jessica, the guy with his hair pulled back in a ponytail lowered the rifle, though he was still a little suspicious.  
  
"Well.okay. Just don't try to pull anything on us," he said. "I'm Reggie. It seems you already know Mike Pearson here, so I don't think he needs any introduction."  
  
Jessica gave him a smile. "Perhaps not, but it's good to meet you all the same anyway, Mike," she said, extending a hand. "I'm Lieutenant Jessica Tackleberry, United States Mounted Police Corps. I work for the Metropolitan Police part-time because they occasionally need another pair of hands to take care of paperwork." Mike grasped her hand in his and shook it, then he did the same for Eugene.  
  
"It's nice to meet you, Lieutenant, Sergeant," he replied. "Thanks for coming to help me and Reggie out here." He turned to glance back over his shoulder at the other officers by the patrol cars.  
  
"I see you got a whole crew with you," he said.  
  
"Yeah. Want me to bring you over and introduce them?" asked Eugene. "They're kind of a crazy bunch, but you'll get used to them. Heck, they may even grow on you after a little while."  
  
"Maybe we can do that later. Right now we got more important things to think about," Mike answered, quickly interrupting before the sergeant could say any more. "I don't mean any disrespect, Sergeant Tackleberry, but we've gotta come up with a way to get rid of the Tall Man. He's constantly coming after me and I can't make him go away. We tried killing him, but it didn't work."  
  
"Why can't you kill him?" inquired Jessica, then immediately she remembered how the Tall Man came to be. "Oh, yeah. He came out of your nightmares. I don't think something that was created out of bad dreams can be killed, because it's formed by unconscious thinking. But.what if there was a way to make him cease to exist?"  
  
"I dunno. How do you stop something from existing in a dream?" Reggie questioned her. "It just don't seem possible." He was just as confused as she was.  
  
"I'm not sure," muttered Jessica, a troubled look on her face. "It's difficult to get inside a person's mind and know what's going on in their subconscious. We'd need somebody who's a psychoanalyst, or a person who works in any of the fields of psychology. But we'll work on that in the near future. Right now, we need to get to Morningside."  
  
"If you'd like, we could escort you back to where you live," the sergeant said. "Should anything happen, we'll be there to protect you." Mike nodded.  
  
"Thanks, both of you," he replied. "I just hope we don't run into, well.you know who I mean."  
  
"I understand," Lieutenant Tackleberry said. She yelled over to the other officers, who were by their patrol cars. "Pack it in, people! We're moving out to Morningside. Let's go!" Just as she and Eugene were turning to head back to their bikes, another car went flying past; there was a squealing of brakes as it made a turn onto the other side of the road, then came into the service area.  
  
"Great. He just had to show up," Eugene whispered in disgust. Jess rolled her eyes.  
  
"He's the officer in charge on our assignment, remember?" she said wryly, then she strode over to the driver's side window of the unmarked car. "Captain Harris, you're a little late getting here. We're heading out now."  
  
"Blame this dimwit over here," said Harris in annoyance, jabbing his thumb at Proctor. The officer in question flushed red, embarrassed as only a yes-man could be for failing his boss. "I don't think I need to give a full explanation as to why I'm late. Also, Lieutenant, who put you in charge of this operation? Perhaps you've forgotten just who the captain AND commanding officer is here, am I correct?" The auburn-haired young woman looking in at Harris smirked.  
  
"Don't flatter yourself," she said. "You'd better come with us, unless you want to end up driving all over the state of California." When she said this, Jessica slanted her glance over to Proctor. "I don't think you'd want to get lost, knowing that this poor excuse for a land navigator is behind the wheel of your car, Harris." A look of muted horror appeared on Captain Harris' face. Just the thought of Proctor getting them stranded in the middle of nowhere was too scary for him to imagine. Lieutenant Tackleberry's voice suddenly snapped him out of his trance.  
  
"So, are you going to come with us? If so, you have to promise to behave. Are you up for it or not?"  
  
"Alright, ALRIGHT!" Harris shouted, finally caving to her will. "As long as I get to be lead car."  
  
"Deal. But you'd best stay behind me and Sergeant Tackleberry, since- " Here she had to stifle a giggle-"we at least know our way to Morningside." She called out to the rest of the crew, as well as the two civilians, as the captain sighed indignantly.  
  
"Let's roll, now!" Everyone got back into their vehicles, Jessica and Eugene swung back onto their motorcycles, and soon the fleet pulled out of the service area back onto the main road. As they traveled along, two of the police patrol cars pulled out and one rode on either side of Mike and Reggie's muscle car, a protective diamond formation. There were no other motorists out this late at night, so the officers did not have to worry about head-on collisions. The small line of cars, led by the two motorcycle officers, moved down the road silently without sirens or flashing lights. They weren't ready to draw the Tall Man's attention, at least not just yet. Four hours passed, and finally the convoy reached a point where the wider lane of the highway narrowed and merged into a local street, forcing the cars into single file once more, with Mike and Reggie in the very middle. Instead of having a cliff face off to the left and a crash barrier on the opposite side, there were trees, street lamps, and houses. Jessica switched on the small radio clipped to the shoulder of her leather jacket.  
  
"Attention all units, we are not in L.A. anymore. I repeat, Elvis has left the building and is now in Morningside. Over." 


End file.
